As the co-operation between the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Waseda University continues, today in the presence of the Minister of Antiquities Dr. Ahmed Essa, H.E. the Japanese ambassador in Cairo, Mr. Toshiro Suzuki and Dr. Sakuji Yoshimura, the director of Waseda university mission in Cairo, the 3rd phase of the restoration project of the second solar boat started.

The third phase include restoring and strengthening of the boat wood in order to reassemble the boat to its original shape. An estimated period for this phase to take is between 2 to 5 years.

Meant is of course the shelter for the boat operator at the bug of the ship. It is a wooden structure with rolling mats made of reed as roof and walls. See for example the already reconstructed boat in his own museum on the plateu of Giza, or modelboats from different tombs, and of course countless representations in image and relief all over Egypt...

"... Mallakh found a second pit next to the first one and was convinced there was a second boat, but it was left unexplored until 1987 when a team of archaeologists fielded by the National Geographic Society ran a camera under the limestone cover stones and confirmed Mallakh was right. Without the budget to safely excavate the extremely fragile second boat, its disassembled parts remained undisturbed until 2011 when a team of Japanese and Egyptian researchers, funded by a $10 million grant from Waseda University, raised the slabs covering the second pit. It took another two years before they were ready to recover more than 700 pieces of Lebanese cedar and Egyptian acacia wood.

The original estimate was that excavating and reconstructing the ship would take four or five years, but archaeologists have had to employ great caution going through the 13 layers of wood beams and the recovery is still ongoing today. Last week, the team raised a beam from the eighth layer that is eight meters (26 feet) long, 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) wide and four centimeters (1.6 inches) thick. It was taken to the laboratory built on the Giza Plateau for the Khufu Second Boat Project for it to be dried and stabilized.

Upon closer examination, the beam was found to have unique features: a number of U and L-shaped metal hooks embedded in the surface of the wood. There are no such metal elements in any of the beams from Khufu’s first solar boat. Archaeologists believe the metal parts may have been the ancient version of oar locks.

From the boats found across Egypt, “we have not found the use of metals in their frames like in this boat”, Mohamed Mostafa Abdel-Megeed, an antiquities ministry official and expert in boat-making in ancient Egypt, told AFP on the sidelines of a Cairo press conference.

The U-shaped hooks were used “to place the paddles to prevent friction of wood against wood”, said Sakuji Yoshimura, an Egyptologist from Japan. ..."

No, what they seem to be describing are what are now referred to as "Rowlocks" Pronounced "rollocks". Devices used to keep the oars firmly attached to the gunwales of the boat so as to make rowing easier and more efficient.

Metal oars would be :

a) Too heavy to be practical
b) Far too valuable to have been made. Though of course given that the King was the owner of everything in the kingdom I suppose that he, if anyone, could have such things made.

"The newly revealed wooden beam with pieces of metal on it that has been taken from the pit of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu’s second solar boat on the Giza Plateau has raised controversy over the original use of the boat.

Was it intended to transport the deceased king throughout eternity as was once thought? Or was it simply a Nile cruiser?

Why did the beam with metal pieces on it not exist in the first boat, now on display in a special museum on the Giza Plateau? What was the function of the pieces? Are they oar-holders, as has been suggested? Or were they used to link ropes like those found in the Middle Kingdom port of Marsa Wadi Gawasis in Sinai? ..."

Egypt is inaugurating its largest on-site antiquities laboratory, to restore the second ceremonial boat of Pharaoh Cheops, known for building the largest of Egypt's iconic pyramids.

The project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Higashi Nippon International University, is set to complete the initial phase of repairs of the 4,500-year-old vessel by 2020.

Eissa Zeidan, head of the project's Egyptian restoration team, told The Associated Press that the lab, at the site of the Giza pyramids, was necessary for some of the boat's 1,264 pieces, which are too fragile or large to move.

The vessel and its sister boat, on display near the Great Pyramid, were discovered in 1954 and are believed to have been buried with the pharaoh to carry him into the afterlife.

... So far, 745 pieces of the 1,264 pieces of the whole boat have been removed from the excavation pit.

Ayman Ashmawi, the head of the Ancient Egyptian Department at the Ministry of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the boat beam was damaged by accident when a crane malfunctioned, leading it to come into direct contact with a beam within the pit.

"A very small part of the beam was subjected to a very mild deterioration which does not have any impact on the beam itself and could be easily restored during the restoration work carried out by the efficient and skillful Japanese-Egyptian team," Ashmawi asserted,...

... Eissa Zidan, director-general of first aid restoration at the project, explained that the pit houses around 1,264 wooden beams in 13 different layers. The majority of the beams are in a very bad conservation condition while a minority are almost fully decomposed. ...